Founded in 1923 as an animation studio, The Walt Disney Company continues to be the biggest name in the entertainment world today. The company, which has produced countless productions, also attracts great attention with its amusement parks in the USA.
The second amusement park opened by Walt Disney on US soil has recently come to the fore with historical news. The autonomy of the amusement park in the state of Florida has been removed. Yes, this park called Walt Disney World Resort has had its own self-government, for a long time.
How was Disney World managed until now?
Disney World, which opened in Florida in 1971, has been governed by the “council-manager government” format adopted by small governments since its inception. Decisions within the Reedy Creek Improvement District were made directly by council members, without the need for state or local government approval.
Of course, the autonomous administration region had another advantage for Disney. Disney did not pay the tax on its income in this region at standard rates. The tax was paid to the state government at a special and much lower level than usual.
But what could Disney have done to get this self-government right?
Although Disney is a large company, it has not achieved autonomous management just because of its size. The company made some promises ahead of the park to be established in Florida. In 1960, he promised the state of Florida to establish the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT)” in this region.
In other words, Disney said it would establish an autonomously managed corporate city in the region. Each building in the city would be designed by Disney designers to carry the traces of the modernism and futurism concepts of that period.
Within this corporate city, there would be commercial, residential, industrial and entertainment centers, with each section connected to each other by a multimodal transportation system.
So what happened to these plans? After all, we can’t see a city in the middle today:
When Disney’s founder, Walt Disney, died in 1966, the company’s city plans were also cancelled. But the various components and designs of the EPCOT idea became the elements that make up today’s Disney World park. For example:
- Disney World monorail system.
Back to the present: What will happen to Disney World?
Disney World will now have more limited self-government rights with the decision taken by the state of Florida. Florida government will be able to collect more taxes from the region. However, Disney can be placed under state surveillance.
The first thing to do under the new law, which has been approved, is for Florida’s governor to appoint a five-member board to oversee government services provided at the park.
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